It might seem as if all classic films are from long, long ago, but today we will discuss a modern classic from 2016, the poetically titled Hollywood Warrioress: The Movie. Like The Chosen One: Legend of the Raven (1998), Hollywood Warrioress is a female-driven superhero movie, but where The Chosen One was dark and edgy, Hollywood Warrioress is full of hope.
Of course, some of your universe's critics are unkind to this film. For example, reviewer Leofwine_draca writes, “This is completely dreadful and laughably bad.” Reviewr cburks192 writes, “I knew this wasn’t going to be good.” And reviewer intruder2k calls the film “Embarrassingly poor.”
Read on for a balanced appreciation of the modern superhero classic...
The film begins on Mt. Olympus, a fuzzy paradise where the Greek goddess Athena watches scenes of war and violence on Earth.
Athena summons Zeus by saying to the empty room, “Zeus, come here!” This results in Zeus, a young bearded man, appearing in the room. Athena sees someone on Earth who can represent the gods and bring hope.
Zeus is skeptical. “The days of divine intervention are gone. We may be wanted, but we are no longer needed. Technology has replaced theology in their lives. This generation has forgotten us.”
Athena summons Venus, then tells the other gods that the woman she sees on Earth (who bears a strong resemblance to Athena herself) is of the gods’ blood. Venus (a Roman goddess, incidentally) says, “A gift from the gods. An Olympian warrioress sent down to Earth to save the world.”
“Do it,” Zeus commands.
On Earth, lightning strikes near a house where a girl named Anna jolts awake from a dream. Her aunt Deborah Dutch (played by the real Deborah Dutch, one of the film’s co-directors) reminds her that Anna’s parents died in a car accident so Deborah is taking care of her. When they hear a sound from upstairs, Deborah investigates, only to find a glowing orb floating near the ceiling that drops a magic diamond from Athena into her hands. Suddenly, Deborah is transformed into the Hollywood Warrioress a kind of superhero wearing a bikini and several glittery belts.
A vision of Athena tells her, “Deborah, you are my distant sister. You are the last of our kind. Bestowed upon you are the powers of the gods. In an embittered world that thrives on sin, you still honor righteousness and virtue. Of all the resources at your disposal, the greatest is your unselfish love for others. Use this to bring peace, prosperity, and happiness to everyone in the world.” She adds that Deborah must recharge her powers on the first night of the full moon or she will lose her powers.
The next day, we watch a black-cloaked figure skulk in some bushes, then enter a mansion somewhere in Hollywood. The figure reveals herself to be a woman as she kills a security guard using electricity from her hand. Then she steals a stone stored in the museum and labeled The Heart of Hell. She telepathically communicates her find to her master, Gerard Devereux, a sinister man who lives in a skyscraper. In his office, he spins a globe and says the classic line, “Today Hollywood, tomorrow the world.”
Later, Deborah meets with Dr. Morgana, a psychiatrist who will be helping Anna get over the death of her parents (and also the woman who stole The Heart of Hell). She leaves Anna with the doctor, then Deborah goes to an appoint with Gerard Devereux, the head of a movie studio among other concerns. She is excited to meet with him, unaware he is an evil magic user with a plan to rule the world (unlike most studio heads). He tells her he is make her script for Visions of Tomorrow into a movie, starting set construction next week. Thrilled, Deborah high-fives Devereux’s assistant Max (a middle-aged man who resembles a low-level mafia operative). Devereux explains, “How could I say no, Deborah, to someone with such a big heart?”
Leaving the office, Deborah has a bizarre vision indicated by a shaky camera and bright lights in which Devereux offers her an apple. “Deborah, do you like apples?” he asks.
“Yeah, I like apples.”
“Would you like to take a bite out of my apple?”
In the vision, she refuses him because she is not hungry, so he bites the apple. Then, presumably also in the vision, a redheaded woman has sex with a soul-patched man who wields a whip.
Meanwhile, a group of thugs reveals they are involved in an evil scheme to kidnap the teenagers of Hollywood.
Later, Deborah goes home to her niece Anna, who has received a necklace from therapist Dr. Morgana. Deborah reaches to touch the gem on the necklace, but she is pushed back by a sudden burst of electrical energy. Anna thinks nothing of it, for scientific reasons: “Oh, it must be the time of the year, drier air, static electric shock.”
“Wow,” Deborah quips. “That could power your guitar!”
Next comes the film’s first action sequence, as Deborah, now transformed into the Hollywood Warrioress (an excellent superhero name that, it must be admitted, rolls smoothly off the tongue), finds the headquarters of the black-clad gang kidnapping Hollywood’s teens. The action is furious as the Hollywood Warrioress first electric orbs from her hands, removing all the gang members’ firearms. The absence of firearms is unimportant, however, as we learn that bullets bounce off the superhero’s skin and/or force field.
When the Warrioress enters the gang’s stronghold, she rescues the redheaded woman she saw in her vision; the redheaded woman is a prostitute trafficked by the gang. “Are you one of us?” she asks.
The Hollywood Warrioress replies, a bit ambiguously, “No…and you don’t have to be either.”
The Warrioress allows the woman to escape the stronghold, apparently by moving her through a magical black void, I think.
Now that the problem of missing teens has been solved, we watch a musical montage of a woman hanging signs looking for lost teens throughout Hollywood. The music is provided by Anna, who plays the guitar and sings in her beautiful high voice. We soon learn that, in fact, teens are still being abducted, but now instead of a gang they are being abducted by Dameon Perry, a music producer who works with the evil Gerard Devereux and kidnaps girls who audition for him in his small home studio (which is also filled with latex monster masks, for no apparent reason). Anna goes to her appointment with Dameon, but shockingly she is kidnapped even before her appointment.
Next, in a scene I must confess is too complexly interwoven into the ongoing story for me to fully understand, a group of Anna’s young friends sit around a ouija board in order to find out where she is, but they are all wearing amulets given to them by Devereux. They say they were asked by Deborah to find the missing Anna. As they try to contact the spirits, the amulets all start blinking and humming.
Meanwhile, Deborah returns to her house and discovers Anna is missing (even though the previous scene revealed she was already looking for Anna). Deborah races to the apartment where Anna’s friends recently used the ouija board, but she can’t get in because nobody will buzz her up. (Fascinatingly, we watch Deborah attempt to ring Anna’s friend’s apartment twice from the lobby.) Desperate, Deborah calls the police, resulting in a plainclothes LAPD detective arriving at the building immediately. When a distraught Deborah hugs the man, he says, “The last time I responded to a 911 call I got shot at. I would rather give a cute girl a hug than get shot at.”
(Unfortunately, the handsome detective never appears again.)
In a helpful scene, Dr. Morgana explains the situation to one of her henchmen: “The Heart of Hell turns our teens into our soldiers through the tiny fragments that make up our necklaces. Most are mindless, like your friends. Through the power of the Heart, we transport them to Hell, and we bring them back as our servants. Since my master is from Hell, he can’t handle the Heart himself. That’s why he uses me and others.”
Through the henchman, Morgana learns that it was Deborah as the Hollywood Warrioress who raided the gang stronghold. Thus, when Deborah arrives at Dr. Morgana’s office searching for Anna, Dr. Morgana knows Deborah is her enemy, so she uses her Heart of Hell necklace to entrance Deborah, and also to fondle Deborah’s breasts as she places a magic necklace on Deborah. “I can feel its power taking me over,” Deborah says. “You’re taking me over.” The women kiss in the doctor’s office, and they have a shared vision of kissing in a forest…until Athena magically intervenes and turns Deborah into the Hollywood Warrioress.
Now the women fight—first in the forest with magical energy blasts, then in the doctor’s office.
Deborah strangles Morgana, who yells, “Go to Hell!”
Deborah quips, “After you!” and strangles the other woman to death. The Heart of Hell appears in Deborah’s hand and she realizes that young people, including Anna, have been hypnotized by shards of the jewel. Deborah sneers, realizing who the real villain is: “Devereux,” she snarls.
The final act occurs at a massive Hollywood Party thrown by Devereux. (One of the signs behind a band playing the party reads “Luciana Paluzzi presents Thunderbolt” and something about a muscle beach party, but this must be some kind of ruse to hide Devereux’s involvement.) Devereux takes a break in the middle of the party to use his magic powers to turn an underling charmingly nicknamed Mad Dog into a skeleton.
Then Devereux explains to his assistant that the crystals from The Heart of Hell are a key that unlocks a dimensional door so that the fallen angels imprisoned there can enter the bodies of humans. Devereux’s plan is to take over the bodies of the media elite so he will, eventually, rule the world. He also reveals that he is the literal Devil.
Back at the party, Deborah arrives wearing her Hollywood Warrioress costume and holding The Heart of Hell on a pillow. Suddenly, the gem transports her into a forest, where she uses her sword to kill pirates that attack her. Eventually she confronts a ninja who reveals himself to be Devereux. She magically conjures a giant diamond in her hand and cries, “Athena, give me the power!” This allows her to fire magical energy at Devereux, resulting in a big explosion and the destruction of The Heart of Hell.
Having vanquished evil, Zeus teleports the Hollywood Warrioress to the jail cell where five young people, not including Anna, are being held. “You’re free, you’re free. Go home now. Go, go, go.” Then she is teleported to Devereux’s house, where Anna sits by the fireplace, her necklace gem having transformed from a ruby into a diamond.
The End
(not counting six minutes of end credits)
The idea of a female superhero imbued with the powers of the Greek (and one Roman) gods and sent to the modern world to foster peace and hope is certainly one-of-a-kind, and Hollywood Warrioress explores the potential of such a unique idea with compassion, action, and state-of-the-art special effects. What more can be said about Hollywood Warrioress? Unlike many films we cover on Senseless Cinema, this film answers all the questions it raises. The villains are soundly defeated and the heroes bring peace and justice to Hollywood. Anna probably gets a record deal. Deborah most certainly sells her screenplay and her film (i.e., the film we have just viewed) gets made. All is right with the world. Hollywood Warrioress (I never tire of speaking or typing such an inventive, lyrical name -- you should try it yourself) is likely an even better film than The Chosen One: Legend of the Raven because of its strong focus on peace and hope. And, because it is relatively recent and the superhero genre is still so popular, Hollywood Warrioress might even get a sequel. I for one look forward to such a time, as I would love to revisit the world of Deborah, Anna, and all the other characters who were not killed in the first film. Hollywood...make it happen!